


The Battle Before Us, With Father Watching

by AbbeyTheWeeb



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF, Historical RPF
Genre: Absent Parents, Angst, Crying, Father-Son Relationship, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Late Night Conversations, Other, Possible Character Death, The Battle of Brandywine, anxious, george and gilbert are platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:07:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26409973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbbeyTheWeeb/pseuds/AbbeyTheWeeb
Summary: It is around three in the morning. It is September 11, 1777. There is a battle today and everyone is sleeping to get energy for it. But one boy is up and he knocks on his friend's door.
Relationships: Gilbert du Motier Marquis de Lafayette & George Washington
Comments: 5
Kudos: 25





	The Battle Before Us, With Father Watching

Alexander hears a knock at the door in the middle of the night. He looks at the other bed and Laurens is still heavily asleep. The door knocks again and the redhead grunts. “Hold on, hold on.” He walks to the door rubbing his eyes, the small grandfather clock in the room says it is three in the morning. He opens the door and looks up. 

“Gilbert?”

The Frenchman, who recently turned twenty, has the appearance of an owl, his eyes bright and bulging like he never has any sleep. His eyes has bags under them and he isn’t wearing his wig. “Yes, mon ami. Can we talk?”

Alexander wants to say no, the battle is tomorrow. But he is Gilbert’s friend and he does not want to become his enemy. “Yes, not in ‘ere, though. John is sleeping. We can do it in the office.”

“Merci,” Gilbert peeps. 

The two trudges in the office and Gilbert sits down on the desk. Alexander lights a candle and he can see Gilbert better, his short orange hair is all dirty and his nose is runny. Not to mention, his eyes are glassy if he just cried. Alexander places the candle down, keeping his gaze on his friend. “Are you alright?”

“I’m terrified,” he admits and he starts playing with his fingers, something Alexander starts to understand when he does that when he is nervous. “It’s keeping me up all night, mon ami.”

“The battle?” It would be Gilbert’s first. The Frenchman begged His Excellency for him to fight with the soldiers and the old man finally let him. 

“Yes.”

Alexander pulls a chair out and sits on it. “You can tell him that you do not want to be in the frontlines-”

“It’s too late!” Gilbert’s voice cracks like he’s about to sob. The boy sniffles and shakes, a tear falling from his cheek. “The battle is tomorrow it will cause all these emotions, I’m very sure. I don’t want to disappoint mon general.”

“I’m very sure it wouldn’t disappoint him,” Alexander coos the Frenchman. “Why would you think that?”

Lafayette lets out a sob, so quiet so it won’t wake the aides yet it feels so real. He’s only a boy that is the new age twenty, the youngest general out of all them. He isn’t built like one, he’s tall and skinny. “I want him to be proud of me, you know?”

“I get that,” Alexander nods. Now he is thankful that Gilbert knocked on his door rather than just do nothing. The redhead could see himself with the other one, they both came from humble beginnings. But Gilbert is different, he doesn’t understand feelings since no one told them. He was ignored for most of his life, only having his grandmother with him. It reminds Alexander of when he was with his cousin, he never had a purpose there. When he was young, he wanted people to be proud of him, something barely anyone did. “I’m sure he’s already proud of you.”

“No, he isn’t!” Gilbert’s hand goes into his pocket and he takes out nothing. He must have forgotten his handkerchief at his chamber. Instead, he wipes his hand over his eyes to get rid of the tears. “I’m nothing like the other generals, they think I’m a little idiot child! They think I’ll be the one that will ruin this whole revolution. I’m very sure mon general thinks that-”

“Gilbert!” Alexander snaps. “Are you hearing yourself? Just because you are not of English blood, you are skinny, you are a fucking boy does not mean you aren’t going to ruin this. Are you insane?”

“Possibly,” Gilbert lets out a chuckle, but there is no humor in it at all. 

“I assure you, Washington would not think you are a burden either way. Just tell him you do not want to be in the frontlines,” Alexander bites his lip. He knows everyone picks on the boy. He is different from everyone else. 

Gilbert sobs again and he hugs himself as he lowers his head. The candle in the room makes the tears glow and Alexander could see all the ones that flew off of the Frenchman’s face. “I’m sorry mon ami, I see him as something, that I don’t know the feelings, I’m afraid of losing that feeling I have with him, I love this feeling.”

“A type of love?” Alexander’s voice is cool and compact while Lafayette’s words are slurred and gasping for air. 

“Yes! Not romance, not that,” Gilbert lets out a shaky giggle. “He reminds me of my grandmother, closer than that-”

“A father?”

“Is that it?” 

“Possibly,” Alexander shrugs. The feeling of a father is so deranged from him. His own father turned mad and started to scream his head off at his mother when he was still young. Then he left. Alexander felt the feeling again when he was in college. Gentle Mulligan had somewhat the paternal feeling, yet he was a little too young to be Alexander’s father. 

But he knows that feeling when he sees it. His Excellency is the father of the family of aides many point out. How he cares for them, checks upon them even make simple small talk with them. 

Alexander could see it more with him and Lafayette. 

“You see him as a father,” Alexander reaches an arm out, his hand going on the Frenchman’s arm. “When you have a father, you do not want to disappoint him anyway. Especially when you love him.” Alexander could remember every second of his younger self, waiting outside his mother’s house, awaiting his father to come home. He thought he was a disappointment for his father and that’s why he went to the market and never came back. Washington is not like that, he is caring and his voice is normally a whisper at best. He is compassionate, not the nasty man like James Hamilton Sr. was. 

“Would he be disappointed, mon ami?” Gilbert hiccups. 

“He would not,” Alexander shakes his head. He knows it. “It’s too late about where you will be at the frontlines, however, tell him after the battle that you wish to stay with the generals. He would understand.” 

Gilbert nods and lets out another sob. He sounds like a crying puppy, something people would want to cheer up at any moment. But this little one was going to war. Now that was full of blood and mutilated parts of the body. “Mon ami, may I hug you?”

“Of course,” Alexander lifts his arms up. 

Gilbert gets off from the table he was sitting on and crouches down to hug Alexander, sobbing into his shoulder. He’s only a boy that doesn’t want to love trust with his father. Lafayette never had a father, he was only a baby when his own father died. His Excellency never had children of his own. But he gains children that are not of his blood, the Frenchman being one of them. As Alexander rubs his friend’s back as he is shaking and sniffling, he has to wonder: will Lafayette die today? 

Battles are never a joke, they are long and full of blood. The clock in the room chimes and it is four in the morning. September 11, to be exact. Everyone is still asleep but they. 

“Alexander?”

“Yes?”

“If I ever do die on the battlefield-” Gilbert inhales before he could finish “-will you tell mon general that I loved him, as a father?”

Alexander nods. There is that possibility the young boy of twenty will die. During the past month, he has become so close to Alexander, somewhat of a brother. The glimpse of the young boy with his throat slashed just like Cousin Peter makes Alexander hug him tighter. Tears are falling out of his eyes now. “I will tell him that, I will.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading !


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